Malkia A. Cyril

Malkia A. Cyril is founder and Executive Director of the Center for Media Justice (CMJ) and co-founder of the Media Action Grassroots Network, a national network of community-based organizations working to ensure racial and economic justice in a digital age. Cyril is one of few leaders of color in the movement for digital rights and freedom. As a leader in the Black Lives Matter Network, they help to bring important technical safeguards and surveillance countermeasures to those across the country working to reform systemic racism and violence in law enforcement. Cyril is also a prolific writer and public speaker on issues ranging from net neutrality to the communication rights of prisoners. Their writing and comments have appeared in the New York Times, Christian Science Monitor, TIME, Politico, the Huffington Post, Mic.com, Essence Magazine, and dozens more, including four documentary films including The 13th by Ava DuVernay. Cyril is a Prime Movers fellow and winner of the Electronic Frontier 2016 Pioneers Award, the 2015 Hugh Hefner 1st Amendment Award for framing net neutrality as a civil rights issue, and the 2012 Donald H. McGannon Award for work to advance the roles of women and people of color in the media reform movement.

Over the past two months, millions of people have taken to the streets to challenge our nation’s authoritarian new president.

From the women’s marches that took place across the country and around the world to the mass protests against the Muslim ban and immigration raids, people are resisting the neo-fascist agenda President Trump is unleashing on our nation.

A primary reason why millions have been able to mobilize so quickly is because they have the ability to use the open internet to communicate to the masses and organize a resistance.

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""(We need) to build the legislative power of local communities to prevent high-tech racial profiling and policing from turning our neighborhoods into open-air prisons," Malkia Cyril, executive director of the Center for Media Justice, told reporters on a conference call during which the proposals were announced on Wednesday."

For 15 years there's been a heated battle over your right to privacy online -- from the Patriot Act to the Snowden revelations to the recent repeal of Internet privacy protections. What can we expect in the Trump Era? What's at stake? Who's at risk? And, most of all, what can you do to protect yourself and defend democracy in a digital world?

This week on CounterSpin: FCC chair Ajit Pai has announced his plans to gut net neutrality; the former Verizon lawyer and Jeff Sessions staffer declared his intentions at a private event in DC. So the victory activists fought for—having broadband recognized as a public utility like the telephone, and not some sort of corporate gift—is in jeopardy. What does this mean for all of us who rely on an open internet, and in particular for communities of color, for whom the web’s relatively even playing field is crucial for communication and organizing?